Just made another effort with (single-file) HDR-conversion of (RAW) flower pics that I shot with a fisheye at sunset. So contrast was very high. And I just wanted to know what HDR would make out of the shots.
Well, I was quite disappointed, all the nice highlighting of the flower went away with HDR, as it tried to lighten up the dark shadows that came from the stark light.
So here's the side by side comparison for you to digest (all pics clickable)
--------------------original------------------||-------------------HDRed--------------------

Well, I find that the contrast of the flower washes out with no substantial gain in the shadows or the highlights. So perhaps this kind of photography is not appropriate for HDRing...

This is the final test of HDR with flower shots. This time I really tried a 3 shot +-2EV exposure and HDRed them with PhotoMatix. See the sad result here (right) vs. the original (left):
As I said in the comment to the pic: I find the HDRed version lacks luster

hmm if its 3 different images, open them in photoshop as RAW then convert to TIFF - then drag all 3 images onto the one photoshop document and try messing about with layer styles, even just be crude and use the eraser to take out bits that don't benefit.

TBH, play in photoshop, its the best way to learn all the bits you will otherwise never use.

HDR should be giving you rich shadows and crisp highlights ... or is it crsp shadows and rich highlights!

David, unfortunately I'm not the photoshop-guy - too complicated for me.
So either it's PhotoMatix or nothing, plus a little postprocessing in CaptureNX. But perhaps I should try again fiddling with some PM-parameters...